3 In comedy, his natural road to fame, DCCCLXXVI. Churchill. What is the life of man? Is it not to shift from side to side?-from sorrow to sorrow?-to button up one cause of vexation-and unbutton another?-Sterne. DCCCLXXVII. The road to eminence and power from obscure condition, ought not to be made too easy, nor a thing too much of course. If rare merit be the rarest of all rare things, it ought to pass through some sort of probation. The temple of honour ought to be seated on an eminence. If it be open through virtue, let it be remembered too, that virtue is never tried but by some difficulty and some struggle.-Burke. DCCCLXXVIII. A man of wit, genius, learning, is apt to think it something hard, that men of no wit, no genius, no learning, should have a greater share of wealth and honours; not considering that their own accomplishment ought to be reckoned to them as their equivalent. It is no reason that a person worth five thousand pounds, should, on that account, have a claim to twenty.-Shenstone. DCCCLXXIX. Open your mouth and purse cautiously; and your stock of wealth and reputation shall, at least in repute, be great.-Zimmerman. DCCCLXXX. We nourish ourselves from the ancients and ingenious moderns; we squeeze, we drain, them as much as we possibly can, we stuff our works with wretched imitations and plagiarism, and when at last become professed authors, we conceit we can walk without help; we decry our benefactors, like rugged children, who, grown pert and strong from a succulent milk, are for beating their nurses.-Bruyere. DCCCLXXXI. To quote a modern Dutchman where I may use a classic author, is as if I were to justify my reputation, and neglect all persons of note and quality that know me, and bring the testimonial of the scullion in the kitchen.-Selden. DCCCLXXXII. There are men who seem to think nothing so much characteristic of genius, as to do common things in an uncommon way; like Hudibras, "to tell the clock by algebra, or like the lady in Dr. Young's "Satires," "to drink tea by stratagem."-Johnson. DCCCLXXXIII. It is a folly for an eminent man to think of escaping censure, and a weakness to be affected with it. All the illustrious persons of antiquity, and indeed of every age in the world, have passed through this fiery persecution. There is no defence against reproach but obscurity; it is a kind of concomitant to greatness, as satires and invectives were an essential part of a Roman triumph.-Addison. DCCCLXXXIV. When fiction rises pleasing to the eye, Men will believe, because they love the lie; DCCCLXXXV. Churchill. Habit or custom, like a complex mathematical scheme, flows from a point, insensibly becomes a line, and unhappily, (in that which is evil,) it may become a curve. — Robinson. LACONICS. Full of wise saws.—SHAKSPEARE. DCCCLXXXVI. THOUGH "the words of the wise be as nayles fastened by the masters of the assemblies," yet sure their examples are the hammer to drive them in to take the deeper hold. A father that whipt his son for swearing, and swore himself whilst he whipt him, did more harm by his example than good by his correction.-Fuller. DCCCLXXXVII. The man who has not any thing to boast of but his illustrious ancestors, is like a potato-the only good belonging to him is under ground.-Sir T. Overbury. DCCCLXXXVIII. The jealous man's disease is of so malignant a nature that it converts all he takes into its own nourishment. A cool behaviour sets him on the rack, and is interpreted as an instance of aversion or indifference; a fond one raises his suspicions, and looks too much like dissimulation and artifice. If the person he loves be cheerful, her thoughts must be employed on another; and if sad, she is certainly thinking on himself.-Addison. DCCCLXXXIX, Story-telling is subject to two unavoidable defects; frequent repetition and being soon exhausted; so that PART II. whoever values this gift in himself, has need of a good memory, and ought frequently to shift his company, that he may not discover the weaknesss of his fund; for those who are thus endowed, have seldom any other revenue, but live upon the main stock.-Swift. DCCCXC. The sluggard' is wiser in his own conceit, than seven men who can render a reason. He who has no inclination to learn more, will be very apt to think that he knows enough. Nor is it wonderful that he should pride himself in the abundance of his wisdom, with whom every wavering thought, every half formed imagination, passes for a fixed and substantial truth. Obstinacy also, which makes him unable to discover his mistakes, makes him believe himself unable to commit them.-Powel. DCCCXCI. An old trite proverb let me quote- Whose bush is better than the wine, May cheat you once-will that device, Neat as imported, cheat you twice? Garrick-Prologue to "The Deuce is in Him." DCCCXCII. Inconstant lovers are like the looking-glass; which re -From the Italian. ceives all images and preserves none.— DCCCXCIII. O grant me, Heav'n, a middle state, More than enough for nature's ends, DCCCXCIV. Mallet. Choose the company of your superiors, whenever you can have it; that is the right and true pride. The mistaken and silly pride is, to primer among inferiors.— Chesterfield. DCCCXCV. To pursue trifles is the lot of humanity; and whether we bustle in a pantomime, or strut at a coronation; whether we shout at a bonfire, or harangue in a senate-house; whatever object we follow, it will at last surely conduct us to futility and disappointment. The wise bustle and laugh as they walk in the pageant, but fools bustle and are important; and this, probably, is all the difference between them.--Goldsmith. DCCCXCVI. All truth, all science, is reducible to axioms-many labouring at the same point will resolve it after the same manner, and, frequently, almost in the same words; thence sentences and topics arose which soon became general, and were, in substance, in every one's mouththe learned still regarding and preserving them in choice sentences-the unlearned, vulgarizing a great number of them into common proverbs.—Joineriana, 1772. DCCCXCVII. The greatest schemes that human wit can forge, DCCCXCVIII. Rowe. Complaisance may be defined, an address which aims at pleasing by disreputable means. The complaisant is |